Schadenfruede

I can think of no better word to describe the feeling I had last night watching the Democrat debate. The spectacle gave whole new meaning to the expression “circular firing squad”. What’s more, it highlighted, again, the absurdity of the Democrats’ positions on just about everything.

Trying to focus on the issues at hand was darn near impossible. It was a food fight extraordinaire…a stage where each tried to out-perform the other. Bloomberg hid behind his lectern (.sic), and acted small, arrogant, smug, and clueless and as he tried hard to stoically look ahead while taking deserved incoming fire. Warren was her usual shrill, unhinged self, screeching #metoo platitudes and demonstrating once again how poorly an academic understands the real world. Sanders with his hand and arm gesticulations continues to look like he might fly away, and while he’s authentic alright, he’s authentically idiotic. Poor Joe Biden with his face lift and newly whitened teeth tried his best to look energetic but appeared the geriatric politician completely disconnected from today’s world, still stumbling and unable to find the right words to insert in his sentences and pitching the “good old days” when his boss was President – coattails on which Obama has made him unwelcome. Pete Boot Edge Edge represented himself, and his whole generation of snowflake millennial spoiled brats superbly, demonstrating his glibness and immaturity at the same time. Finally, Amy Klobuchar, a U.S. Senator believe it or not, looked completely outclassed, childishly defensive: “Are you trying to say that I’m dumb? Or are you mocking me here, Pete?”

What a bunch of clowns!

But I flipped to the Phoenix rally that Trump was holding court over and saw, regrettably, another jester’s performance. Trump really doesn’t act like we should expect a President to act. He still acts like he’s running The Apprentice. It’s embarrassing.

But here’s the kicker…Obama, with his nose in the air and his imperious attitude, his eloquence and presence, was highly ‘presidential’, and spent eight years fundamentally trying to transform America into some two-bit foreign midget while Trump, with his bumbling act, is fundamentally trying to save America from that fate. He may be the most inarticulate President we’ve ever had, and contra-presidential in many ways, but his intentions, his actions and his results have been spot on. I wish I could read what historians will write about him 50 years from now.

If I were a Democrat candidate, and I really wanted to defeat Trump in November, I’d embrace his nationalism, embrace his policies, applaud and thank him for his efforts and suggest that with minor tweaks, the path we’re on could be straightened and smoothed to accommodate the other half of the country who want a more liberal or “progressive” (although I’d avoid that term altogether because it’s a joke) approach. I’d adopt a presidential diction, speech and demeanor and present a serious, no-nonsense persona to contrast myself with Trump’s antics.

I’d still lose, of course, because more than 50% of the population, irrespective of Trump, are happy with the Country’s direction and are optimistic about where we’re going. But at least I’d have a chance to help down ballot Democrats with their runs, and I might even have a respectable run myself.

But the Democrats can’t help themselves. They’re so caught up in hysterics, theatrics, hypocrisy, misandry (.sic), megalomania, and victim-celebrating they’ve completely forgotten about the true majority: the millions of Americans with their heads down working hard caring for themselves and their families, supporting their friends and communities, productively contributing to the growth and welfare of our entire Nation. The Democrats have bought into the notion that the disadvantaged, the downtrodden, the tiny minority of true victims should be helped no matter what the cost to the rest of society or the nation.

When I was a kid we used to use the expression “My heart bleeds purple peanut butter for you” when feigning sympathy for a buddy who skinned his knee. I’m not so callous anymore, but I cannot support, for example, crushing the agriculture industry in California by restricting water flows thus jeopardizing farmers and crops and livestock production because some whiny biologists are distraught that a tiny fish might go extinct (I’m referring, of course, to the famous “snail darter” here.)

What about the vast MAJORITY? How about we celebrate the WINNERS? How about we celebrate EXCEPTIONALISM? How about we celebrate INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT? How about we reserve the use of NANNIES for our toddlers instead of treating everyone as if we needed the government to serve as one.

Trump may be crass, undignified, inarticulate and may appear at times to be off his rocker, but he’s crazy like a fox in that, like Reagan (“just a dumb actor from California” according to the Democrats), he loves this country, he believes a rising tide lifts all boats, that growth (i.e. GROWING the pie instead of trying to slice the pieces thinner and thinner) solves the problems of the vast majority of our people and indeed, for the whole world.

The Democrats whine we’re destroying the planet. While that is simply nonsense (see George Carlin’s famous routine about “Saving the Planet“), my response to the unlikely possibility that mankind will use up ALL of the Earth’s natural resources or somehow so upset Nature that we will all die of carbon dioxide or monoxide poisoning, or that our orbit will decay such that we fall into the Sun, is to go out and find ourselves another planet to live on (which is exactly what we’re doing)!!!

Growth. Prosperity. Equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. To each according to his MERIT, CONTRIBUTION and RESULTS, not his “needs” is the answer. So long as the Democrats continue to whine and stamp their feet, I’ll keep smiling as they seek to destroy one another.

Schadenfreude.

The Forgotten Majority

The Left assiduously and furiously manufactures, celebrates and loudly publicizes victimhood. This gives them a pretense to extort money they can use as currency to gather power, influence and advance their agenda. Meanwhile, the majority of Americans keep their heads down and continue to do their jobs and their best for their families, their friends, their community, their country, and themselves.  

In her exhaustively and incisively researched seminal work, “The Forgotten Man” (Harper Collins, New York, 2007) Amity Shlaes argues conclusively that the Great Depression was man-made and completely avoidable. She borrowed the term “Forgotten Man” from  William Graham Sumner’s use of the term in his 1883 speech of the same name. The Left has always equated the Forgotten Man with those who stood in the bread lines during the Depression. However, Sumner and Shlaes used the term to denote the regular guy who had to pay for all the promises that politicians, both before, during and after Roosevelt made to garner power and control.

I submit that today, the Silent Majority is the Forgotten Man, comprised of similar salt-of-the-earth people who have had to pay for all the promises made by Roosevelt’s intellectual progeny, including today’s Leftists.

It used to be just the snail darter. Remember them? It’s tiny a fish that bleeding-heart enviro-fascists manufactured victimhood for in 1973 to halt completion of a dam in California. The controversy went all the way to the Supreme Court. Long story short, the dam was built, the snail darters relocated all at a cost no doubt of hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions to taxpayers. It, however, lined the pockets of the Defenders of the Snail Darters Brigade (I made that up but I can’t help but wonder if money could have been made on a tee-shirt run with that emblazoned on it!) and Leftists were left (.sic) to feel good about how they’d saved a species. As a side note, the environmental shamans themselves assert that 150 species A DAY (!) become extinct. But the snail darter became the cause célèbre du jour and the money, when followed, led right into the wallets of the enviro-fascists, their cohorts and allies.

Today, pick whatever Leftist drivel you wish, on whatever topic you wish: border protection, religion, free speech, 2nd amendment, abortion, gender confusion, climate change, taxation, law and order, national defense, public education, etc. etc. The economic price, the damage to our society and culture, the frightening impact on our children and grandchildren of what the Left has concocted and viciously squeal…the burden will be carried by the hardworking Forgotten Majority who always pay the price, just as they did during the Depression.

When the Left professes to worry about some minority victim being offended, or potentially offended (think Colin Kaepernick and Betsy Ross Nike sneakers) and seek to punish the offenders; when they rewrite history and seek to “fundamentally transform” our nation according to their warped ideology (think the painting over of the George Washington school mural in San Francisco), let’s not forget the majority, The FORGOTTEN Majority.